Two New Chapters Actually.

The next day wasn’t much different from any other day. Il went to work again, avoiding looks from his coworkers. No one questioned him again, because he seemed to be back to his old self. That was far from the case though. It was surprisingly sunny out today, even though the forecast called for some heavy rain for the next few days. “You sure we were lookin at the right area?” Il asked one of the workers, who was looking over the weather map on one of the computer monitors. The guy only nodded. “Yeah, this is the right area…Maybe our equipment is malfunctioning,” he said with a shrug.

Il only tilted his head and looked back at the screen for a few moments. “Agh, whatever. How’s that book comin?” he asked with a light smirk. This guy, Arthur, was making a book about some serial killer or something. He wouldn’t let anyone read it, saying that once it was finished it would be a masterpiece. Everyone in the office made fun of him for it too. It was hilarious for only one reason: Arthur never gave up on telling everyone that they’d all see. That they’d all regret teasing him when he was rich and famous. Il chuckled at the thought. Arthur Montey, the rich and famous author. Yeah right.

Arthur seemed to glare a hole right through Il, before turning his head back to the screen, typing in some coding. “Egh. It’s coming along,” he replied half heartedly.

“’Egh’? Why ‘egh’?” Il asked with a laugh. “It’s not comin along at all, is it?” So Il wasn’t the nicest guy around. Big surprise there.

“You know, I keep telling you guys. It’s coming along just fine. And when it’s done- ”

“Yeah yeah, it’ll be a masterpiece, I know.”

“It’s just harder to get the plot moving along than I thought it’d be. It’s a lot easier to create characters than it is to come up with a plot for it…” he stated, almost sounding discouraged.

Taking pity on the guy, Il patted his back with a light grin. “Yeah, well, don’t give up on it. You’ll get there,” he said with a laugh. “Well I gotta go set my camera up. Talk to you later,” he said, with a light wave, walking over to the set, only to have his director walk up to him.

“Hey, what’s the hold up? We’re going on soon! Get a move on Rycher, or I’ll find someone else who can do the job right!” he spouted, storming off to go yell at some other workers. Yeah. Il’s boss was a jackass through and through. He never thought that anyone could do the job right besides him. Everyone was lower class scum to him, even though he himself wasn’t in the best way financially. His name? Tim Burton. Yeah, real upper class stuff there. And the guy actually had a wife and kid too, imagine that. How he managed that was beyond Il’s comprehension (and everyone in the office’s as well). But word around the set was that the guy was getting a divorce soon. Everyone was figuring that was why he’d been more jackassy than usual lately, so they were cutting him a break. Most of the people, if not all, in the office knew what it was like to get out of a bad relationship.

Getting back to our anti-hero, Il was setting up his camera, only to notice that something was off. The lens cap seemed to be missing. “Huh…Hey Arty, you seen where my cap went?” he called to the producing room.

“You weren’t wearing a hat when you came in, so I dunno,” he answered, typing away at his keyboard.

“Not a hat, a cap. My lens cap for my camera?”

“Oh, that. Nah, I haven’t seen it. Maybe you misplaced it after filming yesterday,” he said with a shrug, then turned to talk to the main producer. “Are we rolling with the storm take, or are we gonna use the footage from a few days ago, when it was all clear?” he asked.

The producer almost looked offended at Arthur’s question. “You should know better. We’re going with this. If there’s a storm coming, then we’ll get called out on it by channel 24,” she said. “And what is Il doing down there?” she asked with a sigh, one of her hands on her hips.

“He’s lookin for the lens cap to his camera. Seems it went missing,” he chuckled in reply.

Il looked under his camera, and around at the desk up front, even up in the producing office, only to get shouted at by Cally, the main producer. “Ilkinor, what are you doing? Go set up your camera before you get fired,” she told him with a sigh.

“But…my lens cap is missing,” he said, sounding a bit helpless.

“So what? I don’t see the big deal, we can just replace it,” she said with a raised eyebrow.

“Errr…” That was Arthur, or Arty as Il so lovingly called him.

“What? You have something to add in Arthur?” Cally asked.

“I’ll…explain to you later,” he said. “Hey Il, I’ll help you find it after we finish the cast, okay?”

Il was about to say something to Cally when Arty cut in. “Yeah sure. Thanks,” he said, sounding a little downcast at this. He gave a light sigh and went over to turn his camera on, making sure that all the settings were in place.

Cally looked at Arty and crossed her arms. “So? What’s the big deal?” She was…relatively new to the station, having transferred there from a different station in the more suburban area of the city, so she didn’t know what the big deal was with this guys’ freakin lens cap. She glanced over at Il, then back to Arty, her curiosity growing at the fact that he’d looked to see if Il was listening before he turned back to her in his chair.

“Well…on the inside of that lens cap, Il kept a picture of his old girlfriend,” he explained almost sadly.

“Okay, so he lost a picture of someone he obsesses over, so wh-”

“He didn’t obsess over her,” he stated defensively. “She died three years back. She started as an assistant with us for a while, so everyone here knew her. Her and Il started at about the same time. It was how they met,” he told her, looking over to Il, who seemed to be done setting up his camera, and was now leaning on it, waiting impatiently for the cast to start. Arty looked back to Cally. “She was Chaos Xephyr’s first victim. Doesn’t seem like Il ever got over it, and the guy’s been hunting Xephyr ever since.” He shook his head. “I feel bad for him though. It was the only picture he had of her, because not too long after, the place they were staying in together burned to the ground. Nothin left of the building,” he said. “We all felt bad for him after that day, and we kinda all banded together to help the poor guy get his life back together. You know, put a bit of each of our paychecks together to help him find a new place to stay. He nearly killed us all though when he found out what we were doing,” he said with a light hearted laugh. “You gotta learn this about Il, he’s a real prideful guy. He doesn’t like taking help.”

Cally was silent as Arty spoke, turning her gaze to look at Il as he finished speaking. “Really…?” was all she could get out. She felt terrible now. She didn’t know any of this. She’d only been there a few months.

It was obvious that Arty noticed her sudden change in demeanor, because he gave a smile and turned in his chair back to his computer screen. “Don’t apologize to him. He hates pity. And aside from that, if he found out I was telling people bout what happened, he’d murder me,” he chuckled.

“What was her name?”

“Eh?”

“Il’s girlfriend. What was her name?”

“Oh,” he shrugged. “Her name was Ruby. Appropriately so too. She had bright red hair. Shined just like a ruby, it did,” he told her, his eyes focused on his screen. “You gonna call time? We’re on in five, you should go make sure everyone’s ready, oh mighty head producer,” he said, looking up at her with a smile. He didn’t want to have her worrying about such trivial things. Besides, she barely knew Il. She shouldn’t be worrying about someone she barely knew.

Woot woot, new chapter. Keep 'em coming.

Wow...I'm surprised that's your only comment...There was one line in particular that I was thinking was going to get a lot of comments in that last chapter. Hm. *shrugs and goes to start working on new chapter*

^.^;;

Sorry, was in a rush that day. But here's what I forgot to add. "OMFG, IL KILLED HIS GIRLFRIEND! WTF!"

You must write more on this history, pleeeeeaaaassseee. It's a request from your biggest fan!

Lol, I have a biggest fan!!! Yokatta!!! But anyways...only read this next part if you really want to know.

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

(I'm on a roll lately guys!! I already have two segments done after this one! )

The cast? Boring. They hadn't even mentioned the death of Richard Renerdd. They hadn't even mentioned a death period. That made him worry. What was going on? Hadn't they found the bodies yet? Didn't the guy have a meeting or something today and didn't show up? The guy was a rich planner for a large company, when he didn't show up to work, wouldn't someone suspect something was wrong? These thoughts had flashed through Il's mind within two seconds, before they returned to his missing lens cap. Where is it...Who would want to take it......Ruby...That was my only picture of you... His gaze stayed on the image on his camera as the newscast went on, but his mind was elsewhere, making him look like he was in some kind of trance or something.

“The forecast for this upcoming week is looking pretty dismal, Abby,” Stan the weather anchor informed. “The temperatures are going to be warm, but we’re going to be getting a lot of wind and rain. It looks like a severe storm’s heading our way,” he said, pointing to the map, even though there was a green screen behind him. The only way that the guy knew what he was pointing at was because of the screens behind the filming crew. “I know the weather is looking bright and sunny now, but be prepared for rain, and a lot of it. Throughout the week the average temps will be getting progressively lower, and by the end of this we might even end up with a light coating of sleet. More on this as we get more info, but now I’m gonna hand it over to Mike with sports. Mike, how’d those Lynx’s do in the finals?” The picture on the screens behind the casting crew switched from Stan to Mike.

“Well, I’ll tell you how they did alright! They did great, winning the game with a 14 point lead against their rivals, the…”

The cast went on, but Il paid it no attention. He didn’t care about sports. The weather and the news were all he cared about. He kept quiet while the cast went on, and almost didn't realize when it was over. One of the other producers had to come snap him out of his daze by tapping on his shoulder. He blinked, looking at the news anchors as they finished up, getting ready to stop recording.

"And that's all the news for today. We'll update you on the Walten case as it progresses, and we'll keep you updated on that coming storm. Tune in with us at 8 o'clock for more details," the anchorman said with a smile, then went to straightening his papers as he faded off screen. With a sigh, the anchorman, Ronny, got up. “Good cast guys. But man, a storm…I got a feeling we’re still gonna have to come in,” he chuckled. “I’m gonna go get some coffee. Anyone want to join me?” he asked. He got a couple responses, and Il would’ve went too if he hadn’t already been busy looking for his lens cap.

Arty only shook his head. “No thanks man, I got to help Il find his cap.”

Ronny looked at Arty, seeming a bit confused. “I didn’t see him wearing a cap when he came in though,” he said.

Arty couldn’t help but laugh. “Nah, his lens cap for his camera,” he corrected. “See Il? I’m not the only one who makes that mistake!” he laughed. He was glad to see that he’d actually gotten a smile out of Il at that one. Poor bastard. After the group of coffee goers had left, Arty started helping Il look for his lens cap. “Sure you didn’t take it home with you, or forget to put it back on yesterday?” he asked. Il only looked at him and shook his head, seeming to be distraught by this fact. How could he lose such a thing! Arty gave a light sigh. “Il, I’m sure that you’ll be able to find more pictures of her, I mean, don’t her parents have any?”

“Well, yeah…but her parents and me aren’t exactly on the best terms…and I’m sure that they don’t want to give up any pictures of her,” he said sadly. Seeing that Arty didn’t argue, Il continued looking for the cap. After about half an hour of searching, Il finally stopped and sighed. It hadn’t been in the offices, not in the casting room, not in the producing room. He just couldn’t find it. “Hey, Arty. You know what, don’t worry about it man. Thanks for helpin.”

Arty just gave him a blank look for a few moments. “You sure? Cuz I can keep looking,” he insisted.

“Yeah, it’s cool. I’ll just…egh, I guess I’ll just have to ask her parents,” he told him, holding back a shudder at the thought. Killing people held no fear for Il, but her parents…they still blamed him for their daughter’s death. “I’m gonna head home now. Talk to you tomorrow. Thanks again,” he said with a wave before he started out of the office. Arty didn’t leave for another few minutes after Il had, still looking for the cap, before he too gave up and put on his jacket to leave.

“You got another case Tanner.” He tossed the file onto the desk without much care. “Seems that you’ve been doing good for yourself, eh?” This man was an older officer, around his late thirties. Name? John Farry. Yeah, he got a lot of grief for that one. He’d been on the task force in this district for near ten years. So yeah, he knew all about everything criminal that went on. And this new cop, Chris Tanner was an up and coming star on the task force. Just transferred from another area as of two years before as a detective. The young man was twenty-seven, and had been placed in the task force after…a mishap with one of the criminals from his area.

“Yeah, I guess you could say that. What’s this case about?” young Chris asked.

“Richard Rennerd, male of 30, and his body guard, Gabriel Yashia, male of 36, both killed in the former’s home. A single shot to the head for both of them. Forensics says that the shots were from a good distance away. Richard Rennerd is the head of a multi-billion dollar corporation. Tons of people would want him dead, so you’re gonna have tons of fun with this case,” he said with a light hearted laugh.

“Hmm…couldn’t have been that Chaos Xephyr character, could it?” he asked.

From John’s point of view, this boy was obviously ignorant of everything about Xephyr. “Absolutely not. Xephyr’s killing method is much different than what happened here. The only connection between the two would be the target. Xephyr tends to go after richer people. The only method he’s ever used is snapping necks, he’s never once done a violent crime like this.”

A cop passing by stopped upon hearing the conversation at hand. “Talkin about Xephyr again, eh Johnny?” he shook his head. “You know, I still feel bad for that Rycher character…” he said with a light shrug.

Chris looked at the other cop with curiosity. “Who now?”

“Ilkinor Rycher.”

“Ilkinor Rycher? What an odd name…what happened to him?”

This time John spoke up. “Well…it’s a long story. But to make it short, Xephyr killed his girlfriend, and it’s well known around the force that Ilkinor has been hunting Xephyr down ever since.”

The other cop, a little young than John, spoke once more. This one’s name was Roderick Salfranski. “Poor guy…well, who can blame him? If Xephyr ever killed my wife, I’d want to hunt him down too. Anyways, enough about this, we have to find Renerdd’s murderer. I’ll tell you the rest of the story later, cuz there’s a lot more to it than that. So, what do we have on Renerdd’s killer so far?”

“Well…all we know is that his place was ransacked. There was a bunch of stuff missing, and there was bleach all over the floor where him and his body guard were killed,” John explained.

Roderick crossed his arms and nodded. “Hmmm…that’d probably mean the killer was hurt during the kill. We got a smart one on our hands, but he won’t outdo us. In’t that right Chris?”

Chris chuckled and nodded. “Damn right.”

Arty laughed aloud. “Earth to Il!” he waved a hand in front of Il’s face. Arty and the guys laughed even more when they saw that Il’s face flushed red. He’d been staring at Ruby again, and apparently he hadn’t even meant to. They’d caught him doing that a lot lately. It was hilarious. The other guys called it puppy love just to embarrass Il.

Il and Ruby had only been together for about a year, but already they shared a place. Ruby’s parents hadn’t liked that too much. She told them that it was to save money, so that she could keep going to college. And since they worked at the same place, it would be easier for them to just take the same car to work anyways. Her parents would argue that she could stay with them, and that they didn’t think Il was any good for her. Oh boy did she flip out on them then. This whole…conversation, had taken place over a dinner at her parents’ house that she and Il had gone to not too long after she’d moved in with him. After that had happened, Il and her had left, and ever since then Il and her parents had never been on the greatest terms.

Anyway, today Il was out to lunch with the boys from work, and Ruby had brought along one of her friends that she’d made on one of the other floors of the building, when she’d gotten lost on her first day. Altogether, there was Il, Arty, Ronny, James, Ruby, and Christa. James was another guy from the studio. He’d gotten transferred out of state not too long after this incident had happened. Currently, he was the anchor man, and Ronny was just there to help with script writing.

“Shut up Arty…” Il mumbled at him with a glare.

Arty only laughed. “Get yourself together man, I thought you said you were never gonna fall in love, eh?” he stated with a grin.

“How bout you get yourself together. Thought you said you were gonna write a book, huh?” Il retorted with an almost evil smile. Arty fell silent after that, and the boys started laughing, the girls giggled, as it was already well known about Arty’s unfinished ‘book’ by this time.

“You wait, when it comes out, I ain’t even gonna mention you at all. It’ll be a best seller I tell ya!” This made the guys laugh even more. Christa wasn’t as amused at this as the rest of them were, but she still laughed. She was the one who brought it up, though: the conversation that started it all.

“Hey, did you guys hear about Chaos Xephyr?” Christa was a brown haired beauty, but she wasn’t too bright. She’d only gotten the job she had because of her beauty. She had caramel brown hair, big brown eyes, and she was of average height, standing at about 5’5” without her extravagant high heels that she always wore. In Il’s opinion, they made her look like a hooker. She was a secretary on the third floor of the building, which was all telemarketing pretty much.

The table fell silent at her comment, but James took it mostly as a joke. “We’re the news station honey, of course we’ve heard about Chaos Xephyr.”

“Yeah, that’s one screwed up guy,” Ruby chimed in, her voice clear as a bell as she spoke.

Il only nodded in agreement. “Yeah…he’s one sick bastard, goin around killin random people like that,” he said, sounding a bit disgusted. At this point in time, Il wasn’t really what someone would call vile. In fact, he was rather innocent. An innocent, 19 year old kid, still in college.

Ronny blinked at the sudden change in subject. “Chaos Xephyr…? Hm. What do you guys think you’d do if you met him, and you knew it was him?”

Everyone at the table fell silent. After about a half a minute, Il finally spoke up. “I don’t think we can tell until we’re actually in that situation. I know that at this moment, I don’t have the faintest idea what I’d do.”

“I know what I’d do. I’d run the hell away,” Christa said with a shudder, which caused Ruby to laugh. Il’d always believed that Ruby had the most beautiful laughs, so when she’d laughed, he’d looked at her with a light chuckle, pretending to be laughing at Christa’s fear as well.

Ruby…she had bright red hair, and it cascaded over her shoulders in loops and curls. It was gorgeous, as was she. Bright green eyes, and about the same height as Christa, only taller by an inch. Yeah, she was an Irish girl. But without the horrible temper, or the drinking issues. She’d grown up in a decent family, as much as Il hated to admit it. Today Ruby had on black dress pants, and a red, slightly frilly, short sleeved shirt that was only shades away from matching her hair.

It was only twenty minutes later that everyone had finished their food and did their normal game to see who’d foot the bill this time. Well, one couldn’t really call it a game. They all put their credit cards into a hat (or the next best thing) and had the waitress pull one out as she took the bill away. Il, Ronny, and Arty “oooh”ed and laughed when James’ card was pulled out. What made it funnier was James’ irritated sigh. Splitting the bill between the guys was a rare occurance, and they never made the ladies pay anything. Cuz they were just gentlemen like that. Il stood up once the bill was all paid. “Alright guys, we’ll see you tomorrow,” he said with a smile, then went over to Ruby to accompany her out after she’d put her jacket on. The city they lived in was rather small compared to the surrounding ones. But regardless, it was a city they both loved, even if it was plagued by a serial killer. Il figured as long as he had Ruby, he didn’t give two shits about that serial killer. Ruby on the other hand, figured that as long as she had Il, she’d be safe.

When they got to the apartment building, they had to go up two flights of stairs to get to their place, since the elevator was out of order. Unlocking the door, Il held it open for Ruby with a smile, closing it behind her when she came in. He waited until she took her jacket off to come up behind her and wrap his arms around her waist, his chin resting lightly on her shoulder. “You got any plans for tonight?” he asked right into her ear. Her soft giggle was like music to his ears.

“No, I don’t. Why, did you have something planned?” she asked with a smile, turning her head to kiss him lightly, her arms resting over his.

“Well, I was thinking that maybe we could stay home tonight, just you and me. Anything you want to do,” he said, returning her light kiss with a peck of his own.

“Anything, huh?” she asked with yet another light giggle.

My mouth just dropped. Il is.....Il is......OMFG, I don't even know.

This girl shall be reading over all of CX tomorrow and this weekend. Nice Job Kinny, keep going.

Lol Jay. Il is what? I wanna know how you were gonna finish that sentence!

Oh, and ftr, yes, this is a flashback, as will be the next few segments. Btw, on page 37 in Microsoft Word!! Hells yeah!!

“Weelll, there was that one movie…you know, that scary one,” she said with a smile.

“Greensville?” he asked, only to hear a ‘no’ from Ruby. “Hmm…The Forest?” Same response. “……That one with the witches?”

“Yeps, that one,” she replied with a smile. “It just came out on DVD,” she said with a smile. “It’s called Salem.”

Il smiled. “You and your scary movies. Alright, I’ll go pick it up from the store,” he said with the same smile, pecking her on the lips once more. “Be back in a few,” he said before starting back outside. He didn’t mind watching scary movies with her. In fact, he loved scary movies, for two reasons. One, most of the time they had interesting story lines and unexpected twists and turns. And two, whenever he watched them with Ruby, she tended to cuddle up real close to him. He liked that part more than the plot line part.

When Il got to the movie store, he headed straight for the back, where all the scary movies were. Luckily there weren’t many people there, because it was so early in the day. That made Il think of some other plans besides just watching a scary movie. He grinned lightly to himself at the thought. Taking out the last copy of Salem, Il headed towards the comedy section of the store, and picked out a movie that they’d both been dying to see. Well, it was both a comedy and a bit of drama. It was about a crooked cop, who’s partner had found out about him and was trying to get him out of a big mess with some kind of mafia boss or something. The name of it was Down and Out. Before Il stepped up to the cash register to check out, he made sure to grab a box of gummybears, since he knew for a fact that they were Ruby’s favorite. He’d make that a surprise for her.

After checking out, it only took him six minutes to get home, by car of course. Il drove a black mercury, bought and paid for in full by his now deceased father as both a goodbye and an apology gift. Yes, Il’s father was dead, along with his mother as well. Il’s father had been sick with something called Crohn’s disease. The guy had never been too friendly towards Il, having been a military dog, as Il always referred to him. Ilkinor Rycher, a name picked by his father, and one he’d almost disowned. But as he got older, Il started to develop a kind of twisted respect for the guy. After all, the man had survived a war, in combat no less, and had still maintained to keep his sanity. Though, his personality had been forever warped from being a soldier.

Making his way out of his car, Il locked the doors and carried the things into the house, again walking up the flights of stairs bypassing the broken elevators. As he got into the apartment, he found Ruby already sitting on the couch with the TV on, flipping through channels. “Anything good on?” Il asked with a small grin. He had the box of gummybears hidden underneath the movies, so that she wouldn’t see them.

“Not really…” she said, sounding a bit bored, but then smiled as she saw that Il had the movies. “Ooh, you got two! What else did you get,” she asked, a bright smile streaking her face.

“I got Salem, and Down and Out,” he told her. “Also…catch,” he said, tossing the box of gummybears at her with a grin. Her reaction to it was priceless. Her face lit up like a birthday cake on fire. “Thought you’d like’em,” he said, walking over to the TV and putting the comedy in first. “I was thinking…” he started, sitting on the couch next to her. “Maybe we can watch this, then go out to dinner, and when it gets dark, we can watch Salem,” he said, the same grin on his face.

“Dinner? Well you’re going to have to give me time to get ready then!” She giggled. She was a sucker for dressing up, she loved it. And so did Il, he always said that Ruby ‘cleaned up beautifully’. Yes, that was the exact phrase he used.

The movie ran on for about an hour and fifty minutes, the ending being some comedic scene on how the mafia boss ended up getting killed by the crooked cop, and said crooked cop becoming a hero. All in all the movie was pretty funny. Probably not something Il would buy to keep...well, not unless Ruby wanted it. Okay, so maybe he was a little bit whipped. Okay, a lotta bit whipped. It’s not like he could help it, this was his girl! And he planned on keeping it that way.